Former CEO Says NSA Punished Phone Firm

Washington Post:

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew a $100 million contract after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company's top lawyer said was illegal.

Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[PollM]

Wow even before 9/11.

It's a decision made, it contradicts their contractual agreement with the customer. They should be held responsible as they have violated their agreement. If they are given immunity this behavior will repeat itself. In addition to the above, I believe telecommunication companies need to inform their customers if they have released any info about their customers and what info. Full Disclosure.

Do you believe telecommunication firms should be given immunity for disclosing customers' phone records & other data to the government?
-------> http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=702
.

[ghostsofamerica]

http://www.truthout.org/


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101407Z.shtml



Spies, Lies and FISA
The New York Times | Editorial

Sunday 14 October 2007

As Democratic lawmakers try to repair a deeply flawed bill on electronic eavesdropping, the White House is pumping out the same fog of fear and disinformation it used to push the bill through Congress this summer. President Bush has been telling Americans that any change would deny the government critical information, make it easier for terrorists to infiltrate, expose state secrets, and make it harder "to save American lives."

There is no truth to any of those claims. No matter how often Mr. Bush says otherwise, there is also no disagreement from the Democrats about the need to provide adequate tools to fight terrorists. The debate is over whether this should be done constitutionally, or at the whim of the president.

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, requires a warrant to intercept international communications involving anyone in the United States. A secret court has granted these warrants quickly nearly every time it has been asked. After 9/11, the Patriot Act made it even easier to conduct surveillance, especially in hot pursuit of terrorists.

But that was not good enough for the Bush team, which was determined to use the nation’s tragedy to grab ever more power for its vision of an imperial presidency. Mr. Bush ignored the FISA law and ordered the National Security Agency to intercept phone calls and e-mail between people abroad and people in the United States without a warrant, as long as "the target" was not in this country.

The president did not announce his decision. He allowed a few lawmakers to be briefed but withheld key documents. The special intelligence court was in the dark until The Times disclosed the spying in December 2005.

Mr. Bush still refused to stop. He claimed that FISA was too limiting for the Internet-speed war against terror. But he never explained those limits and rebuffed lawmakers’ offers to legally accommodate his concerns. .."



incredibly wellwritten NYT editorial

[pelosiforpresident]

I can imagine the conversation.
Bush: We want you to help us spy on people.
Phone Company CEO: Well, that's never a problem, just show us the warrants.
Bush: We don't need warrants.
Phone Company CEO: Well, it's not me that's objecting, big guy, but it's rather blatantly unconstitutional. You'd need a Pearl Harbor style event to get around that.
Bush: Gotcha.

[RichardD]

Umm, isn't this history?
Didn't J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI just go ahead and do this about 1938?
You know like 70 years ago!!
What might be technically and legally known as "illegal wiretaps" are now tried and true procedure aren't they??
Isn't that...jus­t America 2007?
If not, what am I missing??

[VictorLudorum]

The CEO can make a statement back about why Phone Companies share public mobile phones with officials from inside organisations the consumers deal/are in business with ,like Banks, Electric Company ,Restaurants, Shopping Marts ,even freinds, ETC....... The 'right to privacy' is however bonifide priviledge to a citizen's 'human rights and duties' charter from The UNO..

[RandyRanson]

9/11 or not, their intentions in the White House, were not as they intended them to be at this point in time.
They were planning on having a full control over the American public, with the people of the United States clueless, as to how they were being manipulated.
They failed to fully implement their planned for program of long lasting rule, a plan to use, autocratic control through a massive spying efforts of American citizens, an intrusion into their lives, to put through a massive surveillance system, whereby laws could be made up on the fly, to justify their power of control over any dissension. Their dream for America, was nothing more than to step on it's face.
One CEO said No. Now they want his head. Doesn't that tell you how these so called 'moral minded monsters' would consider your saying a loud No, to them. Indignant self righteous BS, flows from out this White House, like the Colorado River flows through the Grand Canyon. Actually 9/11 got in their way, but the quickly, soon after that fateful day, learned how to use it to their short term advantage. Iraq was on their agenda, right from the start, 9/11 or not, WMD or not.

[PollM]

Wow even before 9/11.

It's a decision made, it contradicts their contractual agreement with the customer. They should be held responsible as they have violated their agreement. If they are given immunity this behavior will repeat itself. In addition to the above, I believe telecommunication companies need to inform their customers if they have released any info about their customers and what info. Full Disclosure.

Do you believe telecommunication firms should be given immunity for disclosing customers' phone records & other data to the government?
-------> http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=702
.

[Mekarri]

I can see why people believe that our government orchestrated 9-11. These people are so corrupt and care so little about the suffering of others and bush behavior that day was so bizarre. It is not normal for a president not to move when someone tells him the country is under attack. Then after 9-11 it was CHRISTMAS for bush and all his corrupt pals. Couldn't have worked out better if they planned it. I wonder did they plan it? There was a time when I would have never ever consider that our government could do something so sick but the more I learn about the bush administration and the more I watch them write people off as collateral damage the more I wonder if it could be true. After 911 he got a blank check to do all the things he wanted to do all alone.

[itsnotmyfault]

This idea that the Bush administration had initiated their illegal domestic spying well before the attacks on 9/11 has been around for a long time. Yet the Congress has been consistent in refusing to investigate or even curb these illegal activities. The threat to Congress is that they will be viewed as unwilling to "protect America", or so says George Bush. You have to ask though, if Bush and company were in the illegal domestic spygame from the beginning, how did they happen to miss all of the revealing events leading to 9/11? How then can this illegal spying be so vital a tool against terror? How did it fail to protect us? What were they really looking for? Why in they hell has Congress really failed to protect America from this assault on our liberties? Illegal domestic spying was one of the litany of offenses which lead to the Watergate hearings. Perhaps rather than rubber stamp the current legislation the Congress ought to do their job and curtail this Whitehouse and their illegal abuses, through prosecution.

[ejbr]

But...but.­..but Obama doesn't wear a flag pin on his lapel!!

[waynesmyer]

"Condi was wrong when she measured me in the "A Love Story in Three Pictures" it is actually more this size" your beloved Presinator, Gee Dubba Bu$h
CHECK IT OUR: KEYWORD:THREE PICTURE LOVE STORY

[leftLibertarian]

No surprise here. Cheney was always in favor of an imperial presidency. 9/11 was the cover to do this.

[LUNKHEAD]

Look how wrinkly and aged GW got. I mean he was always an ugly fuck, but he looks like ranch shit.

[ZingoBonMot]

That photo of DUHbya needs a cartoon bubble saying, "Yea-ah, ahm this close to ree-lizing my mashter plan, be-an dik-tator of Murka!".

[Jane22]

Oh! Yeah! This is the face of a WAR Criminal! He should have stuck with loafing, cocaine, alcohol, etc.,cuz his religion is not working! See the pensive brow, those glowering eyes, that firm look of crazed consideration! Perhaps in the back of his mind is the constant fear that he might wake up from his self-made nightmare! Or even worse, someone might come forward to prosecute him, castigate him or the best Imprison him! For a long time. We can only hope, act, lobby, scream, PRAY for (fill in the Blanks)...­Peace

[ZingoBonMot]

Castigate.­..or castrate? Hmmmmmm.

[PollM]

Wow even before 9/11.

It's a decision made, it contradicts their contractual agreement with the customer. They should be held responsible as they have violated their agreement. If they are given immunity this behavior will repeat itself. In addition to the above, I believe telecommunication companies need to inform their customers if they have released any info about their customers and what info. Full Disclosure.

Do you believe telecommunication firms should be given immunity for disclosing customers' phone records & other data to the government?
-------> http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=702
.

[Qbear]

So much for the F*CKIN LIE that 9/11 "changed everything­."

They were already plotting to take our PRIVACY and Civil Liberties, 9/11 was just the needed disaster to get the masses afraid enough to abdicate our GOD GIVEN RIGHTS.

[alambique]

All this strengthens the case that 9/11 was a false flag operation, to force us to OK a police state and a war of aggression.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the NSA wiretapping, the continuity of government plans, stealing the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, all these plans were just waiting in the wings.

Two things really bug me about 9/11: WTC-7 and the anthrax scare in the weeks afterwards. I don't know if it was LIHOP or MIHOP, but some evil dealings went down, and we need to have a new investigation of 9/11. The official whitewash? I don't buy it.

[Plowboy]

Two things are very suspicious. (1) In the Anthrax Case, the investigation seemed to be progressing normally until the evidence narrowed the possible suspects to one single person, whereupon an accusation was made against a totally different persoin who couldn't have done it. Then the case was dropped. The media was cooperative, as usual. (2) In the 911 case, the government first seized all the evidence at the scene--- then DESTROYED it! Other related stuff pointing in the "wrong" direction were covered up. The media was cooperative, as usual.